II

“Welcome to Stirling’s box, Machin!”
Robert Brindley greeted the alderman with an almost
imperceptible wink. Edward Henry had encountered
this wink once or twice before; he could not decide
precisely what it meant; it was apt to make him reflective.
He did not dislike Robert Brindley, his habit was
not to dislike people; he admitted Brindley to be
a clever architect, though he objected to the “modern”
style of the fronts of his houses and schools.
But he did take exception to the man’s attitude
towards the Five Towns, of which, by the way, Brindley
was just as much a native as himself. Brindley
seemed to live in the Five Towns like a highly-cultured
stranger in a savage land, and to derive rather too
much sardonic amusement from the spectacle of existence
therein. Brindley was a very special crony of
Stirling’s, and had influenced Stirling.
But Stirling was too clever to submit unduly to the
influence. Besides, Stirling was not a native;
he was only a Scotchman, and Edward Henry considered
that what Stirling thought of the district did not
matter. Other details about Brindley which Edward
Henry deprecated were his necktie, which, for Edward
Henry’s taste, was too flowing, his scorn of
the Pianisto (despite the man’s tremendous interest
in music) and his incipient madness on the subject
of books—­a madness shared by Stirling.
Brindley and the doctor were for ever chattering about
books—­and buying them.

So that, on the whole, Dr. Stirling’s box was
not a place where Edward Henry felt entirely at home.
Nevertheless, the two men, having presented Mr. Bryany,
did their best, each in his own way, to make him feel
at home.

“Take this chair, Machin,” said Stirling,
indicating a chair at the front.

“Oh! I can’t take the front chair!”
Edward Henry protested.

“Of course you can, my dear Machin!” said
Brindley, sharply. “The front chair in
a stage-box is the one proper seat in the house for
you. Do as your doctor prescribes.”

And Edward Henry accordingly sat down at the front,
with Mr. Bryany by his side, and the other two sat
behind. But Edward Henry was not quite comfortable.
He faintly resented that speech of Brindley’s.
And yet he did feel that what Brindley had said was
true, and he was indeed glad to be in the front chair
of a brilliant stage-box on the grand tier, instead
of being packed away in the nethermost twilight of
the Grand Circle. He wondered how Brindley and
Stirling had managed to distinguish his face among
the confusion of faces in that distant obscurity;
he, Edward Henry, had failed to notice them, even in
the prominence of their box. But that they had
distinguished him showed how familiar and striking
a figure he was. He wondered, too, why they should
have invited him to hob-nob with them. He was